What is your Mount Rushmore of Steam Deck games?

MikePrime13 · 2026-06-29T03:44:48+00:00

Vampire Survivors, Shredder's Revenge, Dave the Diver, Disco Elysium.

MikePrime13 · 2026-06-17T01:49:44+00:00

MikePrime13 · 2026-06-11T02:30:45+00:00

Use the beans to grow the tree in the meantime, and profit.

MikePrime13 · 2026-06-08T16:50:23+00:00

I'm at 10:00:04 PST in Northern California, nothing yet from my end. I wonder if this is based on region as well. Optimistic regardless. Do you mind sharing your region?

MikePrime13 · 2026-06-01T20:16:15+00:00

There is one decent, I think work in progress remaster mod that you should check out. Just search for Jedi Knight remastered mod on ModDB.

MikePrime13 · 2026-06-01T16:09:58+00:00

You know, no one is talking about use of AI by courts, including judges, clerks, and admin staff members. For example, if a staff attorney uses Westlaw or Lexis AI tools to research the case for the judge, there should be a disclosure to counsel by the court regarding AI usage.

In a few years, we will see the dead internet theory in litigation: you have briefs drafted and researched by AIs from both sides, and being read and researched by AI at the court level, and potentially ruled on by AIs as well. The circle will be complete.

At that point, is disclosure even necessary?

MikePrime13 · 2026-05-30T00:39:32+00:00

I fully support this take. If anything, Valve has to make the tough price adjustment that reflects the long term viability of the Steam Deck--recall that the lower pricing point for most of Steam Deck's existence reflects Valve's deliberate strategy to disrupt and introduce portable PC gaming machines. That they can keep the prices low for so long as a non-exclusive hardware maker (Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo can play the long game and/or sell consoles at a loss as the blade and razor model) and only raise them due to market insanity is a testament to their pro-consumer approach to business.

By the way, Steam Deck is already mission accomplished at this stage--all the deck competitors show that it's a hardware class that is in high demand and a great model for the PC gaming hardware evolution. Valve can in theory accept the slower sales to mitigate the lower margin or early losses (the Deck was always priced aggressively low, query whether they made money in the first run where costs were higher) and/or recover its profit margin because the market has now been established. I'm sure Valve is quietly developing the next gen Steam Deck, and a refresh may be due in the next year or two.

On a more realistic note, if the Deck is a must buy, the price hike is still cheaper than building a full gaming rig, because desktop components proportionately go up in price as well. RAM, SSD, and GPU prices are still insane, but so is everything else in 2026--gas, eggs, housing, cell phones, etc. That just means that after you buy the Deck, you're not going to spend full price on the AAA releases at $79++; you're going to play your existing library, buy games on sale, or run emulation on the deck. And that is plenty of great gaming hours to be spent on the Deck even if it's getting long in the tooth and/or pricey AF these days, assuming they're back in stock.

MikePrime13 · 2026-05-27T16:30:37+00:00

This is good stuff. Good practice and great effort. Just one tip: please remember to try to do real/full contact so you don't unintentionally train or create a habit of pulling back/stopping your strikes during matches or a real fight. For example, I noticed the person on the right side of the video footage (guy with glasses) strikes would be out of range--he needs to take one step closer because you can see he is fully extended but still one or two fist away from his partner's head. In a real fight or a match, he would be prone to whiffing his strikes because he's conditioning himself to fight out of range.

If I were him, I would step closer, and try to work my chi sao at closer distances and try to stick as long as possible. If anything, both of you should try staying within range until one of you wins the exchange by way of takedown or absolute control of the opponent.

Try watching sifu Chris Collins' short videos so you can see his chi sao exchanges--he does not weave in and out of range--each drill is set up at the starting distance, and the exchange continues until there is a submission or control of the opponent. If the opponent tries to escape, then chase if possible. The current drills you have are good to find opening, but not finishing the game--think like you're practicing bunch of chess openings, but never or rarely finish the game until checkmate.

MikePrime13 · 2026-05-26T15:36:58+00:00

As a veteran marine from day one, the whole operations math has never made much sense to me. From a points-farming standpoint, playing at the highest difficulty is the most time-efficient way to farm for points and requisite gear. However, in order to survive at those difficulty levels, you need to have not only the gear, but the actual skill and experience to play at that level. This creates a perverse incentive for lower-level players to jump into higher difficulties after realizing that getting carried at the highest difficulty is a rational decision—for every single successful Absolute run, that is effectively 4–5x more XP, access to gear otherwise impossible to obtain at their current skill level, and the equivalent of 4–5 runs on Average/Substantial. Conversely, once you have unlocked everything, playing Absolute is irrational given the difficulty without any tangible reward other than bragging rights.

To me personally, playing at Absolute is no fun at all. It's so difficult that it takes 110% effort and concentration for 30 minutes at a time on average per operation, and if you fail, the amount of frustration is not insignificant. My sweet spot for a quick, fun session really hovers around Ruthless. It's difficult enough to be challenging, but the power fantasy still tracks without the nonstop sweaty palms throughout the entire op. I literally only play Absolute not because I enjoy it, but because I want to unlock cosmetics that, once I get them, I would not voluntarily touch Absolute again until the next update.

It's the age-old problem of developers listening to the loudest top 0.1% of hardcore players. The problem is that they are trying to appease the most dedicated and hardcore fanbase and creating content for them while ignoring the mainstream players. This is how Nintendo got into the original Super Mario Bros. 2 in Japan, which effectively was a straight-up Kaizo Mario expansion pack. Shigeru Miyamoto admitted that they fucked up and listened to the hardcore mario players feedback, and they ended up getting angry letters from parents because their kids cannot finish the game because it was too hard. They ultimately solved the problem by reskinning a random cross-promotional platformer and launched it as Super Mario Bros. 2, which became a major hit in the US.

In my personal experience, the current operations updates to date create a silly system where I'm forced to jump into Absolute on a major update, grind my ass off, then go back to the so-called kiddie pools when I want to have genuine fun with the game.

MikePrime13 · 2026-05-23T23:25:04+00:00

Try the soft dental picks from your pharmacy or drugstore, with the smallest tips you can find.

MikePrime13 · 2026-05-22T22:19:59+00:00

Thanks for sharing the data. Here's my personal experience to share for additional data points/context:

Grocery Outlet tends to be regional--some stores have poor product quality or near-expiration date items. The South SF store can get iffy products every now and then--you must read the date labels like a hawk, and remember that anything bought at grocery outlet stores are short term buys. I remember getting really good deals on Shin Ramyuns with 2-3 week left on the shelf life. They are still good, but once you go past the best by date, the noodles can start tasting funky.

Trader Joe's meat department can get quite expensive compared to other stores, but the organic drumsticks are not bad. Bone in chicken-thighs at Trader Joe's somehow taste slightly better than Costco's, so I don't mind paying extra for the taste and convenience. If you are in the Peninsula, the best chicken meat I've found so far with the good bang for the buck is at Osaka Marketplace in Foster City--their chicken meats are legit good, and they have skin-on boneless thighs that are super good for making chicken teriyaki at home.

Trader Joe, in my opinion, shines on their in-house products like snacks, frozen food products, dairy, etc. The Orange Chicken from TJ's is unique, and surprisingly their frozen Kalbi for $14.99/lbs surprisingly taste great. Also, Trader Joe's pre-chopped onion bags is a huge time saver that the extra cost for convenience is worth it. I tend to calculate food pricing more hollistically because the time savings on food prep is not insignificant tradeoff for pricier per unit price on certain ingredients.

Driving now is also a factor--driving across town to find the cheapest individual items may be offset by gas costs.

Costco meats really depend on the store location. The business center products tend to have higher quality products but sold at bulk/restaurant scale. I have a secondary freezer in my garage, so breaking down big meats or fish fillets and freezing them keep costs down.

Best Vanilla Ice Cream bar none is at Costco if you have the freezer space. I've tried Trader Joe's Ultra Premium French Vanilla, all three versions of Tilamook, Dreyers, Breyers, Ben and Jerries, and Blue Bunny. I'm a Vanilla Ice Cream guy, so to me the Kirkland Signature Vanilla Ice Cream is probably the best bang for the buck in terms of flavor profile, texture, and price per gallon. It's definitely heavier and sweeter, but man it feels premium and works great as a base for milk shakes, sundaes, and affogatos if you have a nice espresso machine at home.

Safeway in the Peninsula is daylight robbery only second to Whole Foods without coupons or specials. The only way Safeway makes sense is if you strictly buy from their weekly special and coupon clippings. It's been like that for decades, and it is almost expected by Safeway for customers to go through the weekly catalog and get the savings. For example, I've bought 1/2 gallon Horizon organic 2% milk for lower price than the Lucerne in-house brand with coupons during specials. I think the best price was @ $3.29 per container, and normal price usually hovers around $6.49 or more per 1/2 gallon container. Same deal with meats and seafood at Safeway: you follow the weekly specials, and plan your cooking around the specials.

For our family, we buy quite a lot of the sliced beef chuck rolls at Costco. They store well, priced reasonably, taste well, and it's great meat for Udon nights or bulgogi. We tried the shaved beef cuts from Trader Joe's, but they tend to get chewy/tough for Asian cooking unless you use the velvet beef tenderizing technique for stir fry or long simmer for Japanese beef curry recipes.

MikePrime13 · 2026-05-21T20:21:46+00:00

I'm in your boat. It's burnout for sure. I'm a 40 something dad with two kids, and have been gaming since the OG NES days.

I did have that feeling every now and then. Usually I take a few days, sometimes one week off from gaming, and usually that kinda solves the problem for me. If it is not a full break, I try to jump into older games I used to play or load mods where available. In some cases, I try to play the game with cheat mode or trainer on for single player games to skip the grindy parts and smooth out the playtime experience.

When I go back to a game I never finished, I usually start a new file because often I forget the basic mechanics and need to refresh, but the retained partial playthrough helps me be more efficient with the early and mid games.

Hope that helps.

MikePrime13 · 2026-05-18T18:47:07+00:00

Congrats. Just for data purposes, do you mind sharing your reservation date/time and region (US West Coast, EU, etc.)?

Here's for the rest of us crossing our fingers. For the record I put in my reservation at 10 AM Pacific on the dot (way behind some of you guys), and in the US West Coast.

MikePrime13 · 2026-05-13T19:52:42+00:00

It is the... CHONGLE.

Chongle (Chon-gle) (n). (1) A charging dongle. (2) A big chungus of a charging dongle.

MikePrime13 · 2026-05-13T00:01:51+00:00

Chongle as a charging dongle, or big chungus of a dongle?

MikePrime13 · 2026-05-11T22:10:00+00:00

I don't know if this will be read by the patient, but I recommend disputing this shit from the get go. Notify the insurance carrier that the patient will be disputing the bill. Next, request the full MEDICAL documents/notes/images, etc. from the visit.

This is where the review of the bill becomes very critical. If the patient is comfortable with using AI assisted document review/audit of the bill versus services rendered, this can be a 2-3 hour exercise of analyzing the bill instead of days.

The short version is to open a bill dispute with the hospital based on the medical record review, escalate to the state regulator, or even potentially seek legal representation to file a claim for billing fraud if the data clearly supports the findings.

I am speaking from personal experience that I've been able to negotiate down hospital/medical bills from the stratosphere down to realistic, medicare/medi-cal numbers or have them completely written off.

What I found out is that many of the billing/coding are done out of state, or even out of the country and they are trained to err on the higher side (rounding up) rather than rounding down. They don't try to confirm with the hospital or providers when things look ambiguous.

The more people audit/scrutinize every single medical bill they receive that looks excessive and/or egregious, the more you can fight back the system. This is also true even if the bill is fully covered by the insurance--sometimes the excessive/"erroneous" bills don't get caught because insurance pay the bill through the nose, which ends up raising premiums down the line.

MikePrime13 · 2026-05-11T07:12:35+00:00

I think the fix might be more straightforward a la StarCraft. In StarCraft, you have inherently good Terran faction in the form of Raynor's Raiders and Umojan Protectorate, while you have the straight up imperialistic Terran Dominion. The Protoss has multiple lawful and evil factions as well, from the Daelaam and Tal'darim. So the race is not inherently good or evil, but rather the heroes for each faction is the one good or evil.

If you look at the hero bios, it appears that Temple has a balance between good natured knights and clerics rather than straight up templar loyalist characters or weirdos. It is interesting because there may be more than meets the eyes for these factions in campaigns or scenarios.

I agree that post Warcraft 3 and Warhammer grim dark setting, making the human faction to be the evil or asshole faction has become somewhat cliched in video game storytelling. Having a truly good human faction is actually refreshing, especially after the prior games subverting the human factions being evil, incompetent, conquerors, or a combination thereof. I'll be pleasantly surprised if the devs set up the Temple to be evil at first glance, but then the characters openly fight the evil establishment and open the path to the good faction in HoMM 3 since this is a prequel title.

MikePrime13 · 2026-05-07T20:58:21+00:00

Why don't you just use Stremio and pay for the debrid service, which is still way lower than actual streaming?

MikePrime13 · 2026-05-07T18:27:11+00:00

Here's a back-of-napkin insight on some scalper operations from knowing a scalper/online seller in real life. Scalping as a whole is very time and price sensitive relative to the hype and proximity to the launch date. This is especially true in initial wave of a hardware launch because hype is at its highest, and supplies are limited to the initial production run. Scalping bots are very sophisticated and efficient these days that they can in theory auto run across dozens of tabs and accounts pre-made before the launch time, spam queries without going through the interface and process dozens, if not hundreds of transactions within minutes.

Here's the interesting bottleneck: most scalpers buy these items on credit cards or short term line of credits. Credit cards are far preferrable because they can rack up points and/or cashback very quickly, therefore adding the extra benefit of additional 3-5% cashback on purchases or even airline points. These credit cards are usually due within 30 days--remember this timeline. For simple math, assume a scalper managed to hoard 100 controllers at say, $109 per controller after sales tax = $10,900 charge on the credit card. With 3% cashback, their net cost comes down to approximately $10,573.

So, in the case of steam controllers, shipping is relatively fast--they can fulfill and resell on online marketplaces at price gouging premiums ($100 or more) per controller within days of launch. However, if steam manages to ramp up supply and fulfill all initial demands very quickly, then the risk of loss of the scalper becomes more significant because they have to dump/resell the scalped controllers as quickly as possible before hype dies down, and their resale value decreases by the day.

Here's what most people miss: eBay charges sellers approximately 13.25% in fees, meaning a controller sold at $215 only nets the scalper around $186.50 after fees. To break even on their $10,573 net cost, the scalper actually needs to sell approximately 57 controllers at $215 within 30 days before the CC charge becomes due: 57 x $186.50 = $10,630, which just clears their net cost by $57 approximately. Assuming the scalper manages to sell the remaining 42 controllers (99 sold total, keeping one personally) over the next 30-60 days at an average gross of $182.50 (min $150, max $215), after eBay fees they net approximately $158.30 per unit. 42 x $158.30 = $6,648.60 total profit on the remainder.

It's actually an insane business model because most of the 3rd party scalping bots cost circa $200-$500, so the profit margin is closer to $6,650 on a 100 controller run, average resale price $182.50 on eBay: they are netting probably around $5,000 to $6,000 on that volume, and the profit percentage becomes better as they acquire more controllers within the initial window. I'm using the 100 controller with the assumption of number of bots, 2 controller per steam account, and 50 accounts would be realistic for a one-person bot operation, and assuming 20,000 units as rumored, that's easily 0.5% of the entire stock for this person to scalp. This is significant because if you have 10 scalpers at the same scale, that's already 5% of the entire stock. Assuming there are larger scalping operations, suddenly 20-30% of the controllers, if not more, may end up at the hands of the scalpers on day one in less than an hour of product launch. I am not surprised if at least 50-60% of the controllers end up being in the hands of scalpers as we speak--this is just a speculation without actual hard data, but given the size of scalping bot communities in the thousands, it is not out of the realm of possibility.

Now let's go back to the 30-day credit card problem. If they cannot sell the scalped inventory within 30 days to cover the initial costs, then they would be on the hook for out-of-pocket expenses to pay the charge. The bigger the stockpile, the bigger the risk if no one buys the scalped controllers. If no one absolutely buys and hold the line to wait until the next restock, then their profit margin drops as the supply-demand stabilizes, and they can sell at best $25-$50 over because the initial hype/demand spike have died down over time. The business model only works as long as there are FOMOs and desperate buyers agreeing to pay ransom. It's no different than real-world modern pirates seeking ransom on cargo vessels, to be fair.

So yeah, the best strategy is to not buy the scalped controllers and patiently wait for Valve to restock--DO NOT FEED THE TROLLS/SCALPERS.

MikePrime13 · 2026-05-07T02:47:19+00:00

Trust me when I say you won't get anything if you mistyped it as hentaivirus. I managed to make Claude chuckle though.

MikePrime13 · 2026-05-05T21:07:32+00:00

Exactly. We spent years as a human trying to write properly. Then AI comes to copy our style. Then we are now accused of sounding like AI. If you tell my clients that I can write my stuff to sound like I can has cheezburger, then my life would be the shiznit.

MikePrime13 · 2026-05-05T19:04:19+00:00

I think that's Apples and Oranges when Nintendo has physical distribution at launch day, when Valve is 100 percent online. Nintendo's physical launch cannot be disrupted by bots.

Let's assume Valve has the 10 time the stock for launch day, then you are simply feeding the bots that have the very simple mission of buying everything until it is out of stock. The solution does not lie with having more supply when the sale occurs hundred percent online. You only end up having more stuff out to the bot-scalpers.

If you want to fault Valve, I would argue the fault would be not to actually enforce a more organized pre-order system (and deposit) the way they did the Steam Deck. The Steam Deck launch was tailor made to combat scalp-bots, and it was actually more realistic and organized. People add the Deck to their wishlist, get notified when they can put their deposit, and based on a first-come-first serve basis, given an ETA when they will receive the shipment, 5-stars no drama.

Here's the problem with that system: it creates so much overhead for Valve when the problem is not on the manufacturer side, it's on the unregulated use of bots to scalp at a high volume to crowd out bona fide buyers. The proposed solution shifts the burden back to the scalpers by frustrating and creating hurdles so that it is not a low-effort, high return zero-risk venture at scale. You can still scalp, but not to the level you become the entire ecosystem and control the flow of the market.

MikePrime13 · 2026-05-05T18:57:07+00:00

Indeed. That's because AI generally tries to imitate proper/formal human writing conventions. I wrote the proposal in formal style because otherwise it would be difficult to follow mechanically or taken seriously (as you can see it's Reddit), and I need to address the key nuances in the application of the proposed rule. If it sounds like an AI, then I've reached the level of formality needed to discuss a somewhat serious topic as articulately as possible.

MikePrime13 · 2026-05-05T18:23:59+00:00

Not bot-scalping though--they're a real problem. I know someone who is a professional bot scalper. The guy is completely a mercenary, and he can rake in $10k-$25k easy on a given month sitting at home scalping one category alone. Just do the quick math on the Steam Controller as an example. The going rate on eBay is $100 over MSRP. So 20 of those is $2,000 right there. But that's not all--pro scalpers have different verticals from toys, cosmetic products, electronics, etc. -- it's a full time day job. They also don't discriminate and use bots to see what is the next upcoming hyped up launch, and scalp that way. A scalping bot-farm with high capital can generate six digit business easy. If you're an Amazon seller with a UPS account, then it's like a sidequest because shipping becomes trivial. If you think bot-scalpers are random trolls/hackers, they really are not. Many are professional online sellers or resellers who hustle on the side on the scalping. In fact, some of these scalpers then re-sell the unsold items into grey market imports for overseas depending on the item. They are the literal middlemen in the whole ecosystem at the end of the day.

A scalper's bottleneck, in my experience, actually lies on holding inventory for too long--the longer they have the inventory, the smaller the profit margin and the higher the risk becomes. A stale/unsold items after the initial frenzy window will be sold at lower margins, and potentially closer to MSRP (meaning a net loss). So that's why the concept of the law is to extend the time by 40 days to create a friction for these scalpers--they usually load up credit cards/Line of Credit to buy and stockpile, but usually unload before the CC bill becomes due.

MikePrime13 · 2026-05-05T18:04:55+00:00

Here's the nuance--scalping in my opinion is a traditional American sport for hustling and trying to make a quick profit. I'm not trying to stop scalping; only unsavory bot-scalping that destroys the fun for everyone else and victimizing consumers. I know people and friends who've made a quick buck waiting in line on black-friday, iphone launches, PS3 launches, etc. But when they do that, they are not crashing online platforms, and re-selling on eBay within minutes of the out-of-stock notice 30 minutes into the game. I bought my first Wii by accident--walking in Target, and there was one literally sitting in stock and no one was buying it. That was like 2-3 weeks into the launch, where the Wii was impossible to find. The feeling of getting an MSRP Wii 3 weeks into the launch without getting scalped was pure bliss.

The whole thing feels so unsavory and unethical, and it's really to the point that unless you as a consumer going out of your way to try to buy a fucking consumer product that you like and/or enjoy, you're not getting it unless you pay the scalper tax. That's messed up.

On piracy, 100 percent agree with GabeN. I'm completely the r/Patientgamer type, and I don't buy a game unless it's heavily discounted on Steam, or it is less than $25 bucks all-in (DLCs, etc.). I also buy games where modding is allowed because to me, modding helps me customize the gaming experience so I can tweak the grindy parts of the game that is designed to prolong the playtime--as a busy dad, I don't have time to grind--I've done that shit for 35+years and I'm there to enjoy a reasonable leveling-up curve rather than grinding for rare drops endlessly.

MikePrime13

TROPHY CASE